Book description
This new book by eminent scholar Michael Davidson gathers his essays
concerning formally innovative poetry from modernists such as Mina Loy,
George Oppen, and Wallace Stevens to current practitioners such as
Cristina Rivera-Garza, Heriberto Yepez, Lisa Robertson, and Mark Nowak.
The book considers poems that challenge traditional poetic forms and in
doing so trouble normative boundaries of sexuality, subjectivity,
gender, and citizenship. At the heart of each essay is a concern with
the "politics of form," the ways that poetry has been enlisted
in the constitution--and critique--of community. Davidson speculates on
the importance of developing cultural poetics as an antidote to the
personalist and expressivist treatment of postwar poetry. A
comprehensive and versatile collection, On the Outskirts of Form places
modern and contemporary poetics in a cultural context to reconsider the
role of cultural studies and globalization in poetry. "An astute
reader of late-20th-century American poetry, Davidson covers a lot of
ground, in terms of both composition and range of interest. ...
Recommended"--R. T. Prus, Choice Poet and scholar MICHAEL
DAVIDSON is Distinguished Professor of Literature at the University of
California, San Diego. He is the author of numerous books, most recently
Concerto for the Left Hand: Disability and the Defamiliar Body.
